News

GE, Whirlpool ++ launch smart green grid initiative

29 October 2009

GE, Whirlpool Corporation and a number of other companies are creating a new collaborative effort aimed at demonstrating the role of smart grid technologies and practices in the achievement of climate change goals.

Called the Smart Green Grid Initiative (SGGI), the effort will include educational events at the upcoming COP15 climate change meetings in Copenhagen. SGGI has been approved by the United Nations to be an official smart grid delegation to the Copenhagen meetings.

SGGI will also be sponsoring educational events in the USA in the weeks preceding the meetings in Copenhagen.

“We need to help the world understand the real potential for smart grid technologies to help slow climate change,” says Bob Gilligan, Vice President of GE Energy’s Transmission and Distribution business. “Smart Grid solutions are often viewed primarily for their efficiency and cost savings, but every kilowatt saved is also a carbon savings. Add the potential carbon benefits we get through easier integration of more renewable energy, like wind and solar, and the smart grid can have a major effect on the carbon impact of our energy infrastructure.”

SGGI will seek to help government, industry and policy makers see smart grid technologies and practices within a larger perspective. For example, with a key component of climate change policies being increased use of renewable energy, SGGI will try to help parties understand and manage its variable and intermittent nature.

It will try to demonstrate that demand response and energy storage solutions can dynamically complement renewable resources – and avoid the building of new fossil-fuel power plants to fill the availability gaps and peak needs.

“Another important area is energy efficiency,” said Dan Delurey, Chairman of the Smart Green Grid Initiative. “Today, it is important to view energy efficiency in a more holistic and dynamic way than in the past. New technologies and applications mean that energy efficiency can mean more than just replacing one device with a newer, more efficient one. It can include providing new information to the consumer that they have simply never had before. Research has shown that electricity customers with energy usage information become more energy efficient overall – by upwards of 15%. The smart grid may help make energy efficiency sustainable and institutionalised in business and society.”

“This is also true with appliances,” said Noel, of Whirlpool, and “we need to not only make our appliances more efficient, but smarter.” Jim Campbell, President & CEO of GE Consumer & Industrial, the GE division innovating demand response appliances, added “Smart appliances connected to the grid can schedule energy intensive activities to take place during lower energy usage periods like evenings and nights, when some renewable resources like wind are more likely to be available.”

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